Dominick
My brain was stuck in a fog, even while my mind was buzzing faster than I could measure. The paramedics had said it was safe to move Helena to the hospital, and I'd been pacing the halls of Massachusetts General ever since. I still had no idea what was going on, which made it all-too-easy to imagine all the terrible possibilities.
I barely had the awareness to take in my surroundings, but did notice that most of the people in the waiting room were men. Several of them seemed way too happy to be sitting in a hospital, but a couple of them were sporting the same panic-stricken look I felt on my own face.
I drank another coffee from the machine, and paced some more.
I was getting the occasional double-take from some of the other guys, but I had no idea if any of them recognized me.
I didn't care, either. It didn't matter one bit if anyone recognized me, at least as long as nobody called the local news. The last thing I—or Helena—needed was for the media to show up and make everything infinitely worse.
The situation was bad enough on its own. The drive over to the hospital had been grueling, my body cold with fear despite the hot weather. I'd been alone then, just like I was alone now. Helena had been taken in via ambulance, and mercifully Ali was with her grandfather and missed the entire thing.
Thank heaven for that. At least for the time being, nobody else had to shoulder this worry. If everything turned out okay, nobody else would have to either.
That was good.
I was so concerned that I hardly had time to drive myself crazy, at least initially. As time wore on however, echoes of Helena's ominous speech came back to me. I still had no idea what she'd been trying to say, but there was no way it was something pleasant.
Very little good news begins with phrases like "there's no good way to say this," or "I hope you can understand," or "I'm sorry, but…."
But what? I asked myself, but a deep dark place inside of me felt like it already knew. Building the porch had been reckless and impulsive, there was no doubt. The more that I thought about it—and in the purgatory of the waiting room I had nothing but time to think—the more I realized just how stupid I had been.
How could I expect Helena to trust me with Ali, if she couldn't trust me with her house?
Hell, it wasn't even her house, as Helena had pointed out earlier. It belonged to Mrs. Lauer.
And, for that matter, Helena had never trusted me with Mrs. Lauer's house in the first place.
It was almost impressive, how I'd found a way to screw everything up.
Stupid.
The more I thought about it, the worse I felt…but also the better I felt, because it meant I wasn't thinking about where I was, or what might be going on with Helena deep inside of the hospital. In a way, it was a relief to have such a pleasant distraction.
Such a pleasant, crushingly upsetting distraction.
"Dominick Henderson?" a soft female voice called, catching my attention through the din of doubts and fear.
It also caught the attention of a few of the other guys in the room, unfortunately. They'd seemed cheerful before, but now they looked downright excited.
Who the hell gets happy like that in a hospital?
"That's me," I said finally, my eyes landing on the pink-clad nurse who'd called me. Tight cords of tension in my neck strained as I forced myself to remain calm, trying not to panic or yell. I had a thousand questions and wanted to ask them all at once, but a single one took priority above all. "Is she okay?" I asked.
"She will be fine," the nurse said with a nod before checking her clipboard. "You're the father?"
"Yes," I agreed quickly, intense relief already flooding through me.
"It was just low blood-pressure. It's common, and there was no damage from the fall. She's lucky she had you there to catch her," the nurse explained. "Would you like to see Ms. Bramford now? She's been asking to see you for some time."
I let out a hoot of excitement, incredibly relieved at the good news. The other guys cheered back at me, shouting congratulations my way.
Elated, I followed the nurse past the main doors and into a nondescript hallway. I entered Helena's room in silence and listened as the two women spoke to each other for a moment, then the nurse turned and left.
As happy as I was, Helena clearly wasn't. Within seconds, her body language had changed completely. She seemed to shrink inward onto herself, subtly cringing away from me when I stepped closer. She was avoiding eye contact, and her expression had gone from neutral to terrified.
But, she'd looked okay when I came in. It was only after the nurse had gone and we were alone that the shift occurred. Whatever Helena was upset about, it didn't seem to be related to the hospital.
It was about me.
And at that moment, everything finally clicked. All of the clues made a sudden, horrible sense that I couldn't deny no matter how much I wanted to.
At that moment, I knew.
"I just realized that the nurse asked if I was the father," I said after a few moments of grave silence.
Helena didn't respond, instead closing her eyes as her face scrunched up in pain. Without saying a word, she had all but confirmed my fear.
"Am I?" I asked quietly.
"Of course you are," Helena whispered.
"But she wasn't asking about Ali, was she?"
"No," Helena said, so softly it was little more than a heavy breath. "She wasn't."